Parentator. Memoirs of remarkables in the life and the death of the ever-memorable Dr.…

The Sovereign Disposer of all things, would not allow us now to say, Sortitus est facilem exitum, et qualem semper Optaverat. However, I will not proceed now with such Punctual Relations, of the Doctors last Sickness, as the Funeral Orations on the Professors beyond Sea, use to be stuffed withal. But for the sake of what follows, I will Relate this: It was not long after this, that among other Infirmities, he was extremely tortured and enfeebled, with an obstinate Hicket, which would sometimes hold him a Week or perhaps a Fortnight, without Intermission, and then Intermit a little while, but return with the former Violence, to such a Degree that it was at last found, His Diaphragm Suffered a Corrosion from it. Under the Uneasy and Incessant Malady, and the Vapours which produced it, and were produced by it, he grew at sometimes very Forgetful, and even Delirious: And In the Minutes of the Darkness wherein he lay thus feeble and fore broken, he sometimes let fall expressions of some Fear lest he might after all be Deceived in his Hope of the Future Blessedness. His Holy Ministry having very much insisted on that Point, That no care could be too much to prevent our being Deceived in that Important Matter; tis no wonder, that as the Dark Vapours which assaulted and fettered his Intellectual Powers, broke in upon him, his Head should run much ⟨p. 208⟩upon the Horror of being Deceived at the last. Yea, had there not been any thing at all of a Natural Debilitation and Obnubilation in it, yet it were a very Supposable thing, and not at all to be wondered at, if the Serpent be let loose to vex a Servant of GOD in the Heel of his Life; and if the Powers of Darkness, Knowing the Time to be short, fall with Great Wrath on the Great Opposers of their Kingdom, and make a very Dark Time for them just before the Break of the Eternal Day upon them. And how justly might it awaken the rest of us to Work out our own Salvation with Fear and Trembling, When we see such a Man as Dr. Mather, concerned with so much Fear and Trembling, lest he should be Deceived at the last?

The Sovereign Disposer of all things, would not allow us now to say, Sortitus est facilem exitum, et qualem semper Optaverat. However, I will not proceed now with such Punctual Relations, of the Doctors last Sickness, as the Funeral Orations on the Professors beyond Sea, use to be stuff'd withal. But for the sake of what follows, I will Relate this: It was not long after this, that among other Infirmities, he was extremely tortured and enfeebled, with an obstinate Hicket, which would sometimes hold him a Week or perhaps a Fortnight, without Intermission, and then Intermit a little while, but return with the former Violence, to such a Degree that it was at last found, His Diaphragm Suffered a Corrosion from it. Under the Uneasy and Incessant Malady, and the Vapours which produced it, and were produced by it, he grew at sometimes very Forgetful, and even Delirious: And In the Minutes of the Darkness wherein he lay thus feeble and fore broken, he sometimes let fall expressions of some Fear lest he might after all be Deceived in his Hope of the Future Blessedness. His Holy Ministry having very much insisted on that Point, That no care could be too much to prevent our being Deceived in that Important Matter; tis no wonder, that as the Dark Vapours which assaulted and fettered his Intellectual Powers, broke in upon him, his Head should run much